Man Drives to Hospital With Nail in His Heart

A Wisconsin man is lucky to be alive after accidentally shooting a nail into his heart.

On June 25, Doug Bergeson was working at his house on the framing for a fireplace when he unintentionally fired a metal spike stuck in his chest after ricocheting off some wood.

Most shockingly, after realizing that the nail was lodged in his body, the 52-year-old then drove his own truck to the Bay Area Medical Center and then calmly walked into the emergency room.

“I thought it just nicked me. I looked down. I felt OK,” Bergeson told the Associated Press on Tuesday. “I wasn’t worried about the injury. I couldn’t feel any pressure or blood building up.”

Bergeson saw the three-and-a-half inch nail sticking out of his chest. He says that his “common sense” told him not to pull it out.

“I could see the nail moving with my heartbeat. It was kind of twitching with every heartbeat,” he said.

Bergeson said that he was more “frustrated” that he was leaving his project undone than the fact that he had a nail in his heart.

“I knew I wasn’t going to get home until late and I couldn’t get anything done,” Bergeson said.

Once he was examined, Dr. Alexander Roitstein, the cardiothoracic surgeon at the Aurora BayCare Medical Center, confirmed that the nail hit Bergeson’s heart and was 1/16 of an inch away from hitting a major artery.

Bergeson spent two days in the hospital and was left with a nail-sized hole and some bruising on his chest.

“I feel pretty good. I’m back to doing things carefully. It was a pretty awakening experience,” he said.

During a recent interview with ABC affiliate WBAY, Bergeson said, “Made my whole family very nervous, I’m sorry about that!”